A Smile And A Wave

The Lyric In Fort Collins (Redefining Art House Cinema)

                           Falter Ego, steel & poly resin sculpture by Erick C Johnson outside the Lyric theater

A Bad Night On Kipling

Competing Against The Tendency Towards Inertia

Every so often I think I need a challenge.  A fresh challenge, an undertaking that will force me to confront the things inside me that keep me from learning new stuff (knowledge, knowledge, knowledge), or trying something new.

Except I don't want a new challenge that is just an excuse to do some cliche'd middle-age-misery challenge such as running a marathon or hiking up a mountain. 

No, the sort of challenge that pops up in my head from time-to-time is more of the "Is it too late for me to learn how to bust a move"? or "How much of a chance do I have of learning the bass guitar competently enough to join a surf guitar group?"

Those are just two examples of what I consider a real challenge. If I challenge myself to think about it further, I'm certain I can come up with a few more..

The Snow Queen

                         Like a meteor lighting up the sky
                                For a few brief 
                                Glorious 
                                Seconds
                                    She graced a few pages 
                                           With delicately crafted 
                                           Fearless words and 
                                           Fearless pictures
                                    Just one book of poetry
                                 Was all it took for the world to see
                                 That this blossoming flower 
                                 Who cut her own life short
                          Was a loss for all humanity
                                             So, so young
                                             She became undone
                                             Only twenty one
                                             

Harder Than It Looks

Everything Is Better Than You Think

Get up, drag yourself to the bathroom sink, splash cold water on your face. 

Squeeze one more shave out of a dull razor, dry off with a towel in need of a wash itself.

Dress in clothes that have seen better days, tie laces in shoes with soles that are barely there.

Make it to work in the nick of time, log-in to your company email and wonder how the hell could so many messages possibly appear overnight.

Then stop. Take a deep breath and clear your head of every distraction, if only for a moment.

Try to recall those days of your youth when you were struggling - really struggling, everyday, with everything.

I'm not talking about the days of your youth when you argued nearly everyday with parents, siblings, or authority figures, or the days of your youth when you hated the world and everything in it.

I'm talking about the days of your youth when you didn't understand why you were you, why you had to endure the overwhelming confusion of adolescence and why no-one understood what was going inside you.

I'm talking about those days when adults would remark "Why don't you grow up" or "You just need to have confidence", as if those things were so easy a caveman could do them.

Remember those days? Those days were real, those days were hell.

But those days are also gone, those days are far, far behind you. Let that fact soak in for a few moments.

Today you are the victor over a past that tried it's best to cripple you at every turn, and whether that was real or imagined does not matter. You won. You may not be in the best possible situation, you may think life is an incessant barrage of crap from every side, but that matters not.

What matters is you are a survivor, in fact, chances are you're more than a survivor, you're a thriver.

If you're reading this then that means you have access to a computer that has access to the internet, and that means you have access to the greatest storehouse of knowledge that has ever existed, the greatest research engine, the greatest educational tool, the most incredible repository of all of mankind's philosophical insights, inspirations and aspirations.

It is the most fantastic, useful thing since, well, ever.

If you suffer from self-doubt, there is an app for that. If you suffer from insecurities, there is an app for that. If you just want to learn relaxation techniques, there's an app for that.  

Free yourself from your own prison - it's now more possible to do that then it has ever been. Using this device you can communicate with people all over the globe who have done that very thing for themselves and are willing to share how they did it with you.

A word of caution though. There are also people who use this tool to prolong their own misery. Avoid those people at all cost.






  

The Tenacity Of Tiny

The world's largest butterfly
                   Was having it out with 
The world's smallest elephant
       For the rights to the world's tastiest thin mint
       And a glass of the world's driest chardonnay
                                     Needless to say
                  The pay-per-view set new records
                         For revenue
                                
The judges were split well into the last round
                   When the butterfly started to beat his wings
Which sent the elephant down to the canvas
           Making all the gamblers embarrassingly anxious
           To see their champion on the ground
                                               Like a stray in the pound
                       The sweat flowed in rivers
                              From their brows

Then from deep inside 
                 The elephant found a last reserve
And gave his tiny trunk a mighty twirl
       He found his target, the butterfly whirled
       Until sagging to it's buttery butterfly knees
                                      Collapsing with a sigh and a wheeze
                             The fight ending with a knock out
                             By the puny pachyderm

                       
                               
          
                                                   

Technically, It Could Be Termed A Functional Impairment

He knew the fear was irrational, which made it confusing for those around him. 

He would demonstrably react as if he was facing the most threatening of terrors, all the while explaining to anyone who may be witnessing the event that he was well aware that what he was doing was illogical.

But he couldn't shake it. No matter how often he talked it through with various therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and bartenders, inevitably when caught in the same circumstances that provoked the response, all reason left him.

 So he figured he might as well accept it as a part of him, harmless to others and mostly just embarrassing to him.

The thought occurred to him that he could have cards printed up that he could hand out whenever he had a public episode, but then he nixed the idea because it seemed, well, absurdist, and would probably provoke more laughter than understanding.

Hell, the thought of being given a card like that even made him laugh. 

"Pardon me, I have a fear of tomatoes".

Heh. The very idea.

It's All About The All-Encompassing Momentum

Find Your Spirit Animal

Lately it has occurred to me that it may be necessary to find my spirit animal...you know, for inner peace and whatnot.

See The Hate, Feel The Hate

I see your hate I hear your hate I think your hate
I see your hypocrisy I hear your hypocrisy 
I think I might just embrace your hypocrisy
That selective ability to be prejudicial, racist, hateful
And be applauded for it by the media

I look in a mirror and I see my own pale scarred white skin
I look in a mirror and I see my own pale blue eyes
I look in a mirror and I see my own masculinity

There was a time I looked in that mirror and I saw
 The same features that men who discovered 
Life-saving vaccines shared
 The same features that men who had brought 
Life-giving water to the wastelands shared
 The same features that men who brought 
The rule of law to the tyrants who ruled by the sword shared
 The same features that men who put 
The safety of others first shared
 The same features that men who swore to uphold 
The rights of others shared
 The same features that men who defended 
The weak and disabled shared

Driving home one cold night I saw a white male state trooper   Changing a tire
On a car belonging to a young woman 
 Stranded on the side of the highway
And I caught myself thinking
 "Don't do it, she hates you"

Read the back pages of your local paper and you may see
 Articles about white male policemen 
Being murdered responding to a call
 There have been three killed in the past few weeks
In Texas
 In South Carolina
In Florida

No headlines for these men, no outrage from the public

Hard to stop myself from thinking
 "Stop responding to those calls. 
Stop trying to protect those that hate you."

It feels like my eyes have been ripped wide open
 Do they hate me and everyone who looks like me
Do they want only to hurt me and all who look like me
 Do they only want to see me and all who look like me 
Die

Are they my enemy

Have they actually won
 Have they convinced me that I myself am the Devil
Not the child of a woman who desired that I                                         Grow to be a man who gives
But the spawn of a Demon who only wanted me to take 
 And take and take and take
Have they seen through a clever disguise I was 
 Unwittingly wearing
That I now need to shed as unnecessary

Should I no longer
 Offer my strength 
Should I no longer
 Offer my words of encouragement
Should I 
 Embrace the practices of these practitioners of hate

And damn them wholesale with every statement I make

Into The Abyss That Is Winter

Embrace The Silence Of Winter...Or Not